


in my head I do everything right

by Anonymous



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-22 23:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16607621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ryan kisses Shane and ruins everything.





	in my head I do everything right

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually think these guys are in love I just thought it would be narrative dynamite if they were

It never should have happened.

It was inevitable.

They spent all their time together. They shared snacks in airports, fell asleep against each other on planes, shuffled their luggage to hotel shuttles and rental cars with other bleary eye couples. They shared rooms. They shared beds. The pillow walls were built and then disappeared.

Ryan was the one who fucked it up, because of course he was.

Sitting in the back seat of an Uber in a strange city, and no one knew them, and they'd just had maybe too many drinks, and that wasn't when he fucked up.

It wasn't the next morning, either, when he woke up to parametocol and a glass of water and a crunchy peanut butter Clif bar.

It wasn't when they got home jetlagged and giddy messes, either.

He didn't have any excuse handy for kissing Shane. 

He just did, and Shane kissed back, and it spiraled, as things did, and then Ryan had his hands gripping Shane's stupid flannel and his thighs across Shane's, and then. And then.

"This is a bad idea," Shane said, when Ryan's kisses went from hungry to too soft, too lingering, too reverent on his best friend's neck.

Fuck.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I don't - I guess I just - took a shot and - big. Big mistake, yeah. Let's pretend this never happened."

This is a great idea, except that they were under the microscope of a camera lense and suddenly they were not themselves, coworkers, friends - they were playing them on TV instead. Auditioning for the role of who they'd been before he went and ruined everything, and they were the director's second pick, second rate actors with B movie dialogue.

* * *

It was disingenuous, though, to say that it was just one ill-advised moment of reckless disregard for everything they'd built on the heels of some feeling of imminence and inevitability.

It had been a lot of things. The steps of a poolside waltz on a warm evening, the conspiratorial look in a meeting when they shouldn't have been laughing but did, the straightening of Ryan's coat for him with a jab about thin California skin, the crinkle of Shane's eyes illuminated by the glow of screens when he smiled at some dumb joke Ryan had made, the brush of their shoulders on a pier, the way Shane said his name, and the soft edges of his face as he dozed on the plane home.

"You have to be my best friend," Shane said, when Ryan woke him up the half dozenth time because something was definitely making noise in the room above them. "It's the only explanation for why I haven't killed you yet."

So they went for drinks and Ryan didn't kiss him and they went to dinner and he didn't kiss him and they went halfway around the world and he didn't kiss him and then he did.

"You're my best friend," Shane said again, serious for once, and they were sitting on the floor and it was too much, too easy to lean forward and close the space between them.

But it was a bad idea. Not one of Ryan's better theories. He'd been playing it all back over in his head and there just wasn't evidence for this one.

More fool on him for believing.

* * *

 

They were standing on the sidewalk outside the theatre and Shane said, "Just come to mine."

And it made sense. Another shared Uber, another shared morning commute, another shared bed, another inside joke and another argument all rolled into one and they left the door open and kicked off their matching boots and yelled at either about something pointless.

Normal, normal, normal. So routine to be all tangled up like this and Ryan looked at him and thought, what if.

Because for all Shane's goofing around and taunting demons it was Ryan who had the truly crazy ideas, like kissing him right there, sitting on the tile in Shane's apartment kitchen, half out of their winter layers, door still open. Stupid, to be crawling into Shane's lap. Reckless, to be hauling him closer by his ubiquitous flannel. Dangerous, to taste the edge of his jaw where stubble starting to grow back, to think about sleepy hotel breakfasts in a half a hundred places and the way it almost seemed like it was right in front of them, ready for the taking.

"Just stay on the couch," Shane said, when Ryan stumbled over an announcement that it was late and he should get an Uber.

But he gathered up his shoes and his layers and tried to bundle up one handed while ordering the ride and Shane was there, hand on Ryan's elbow to steady his one-legged hopping half into his boots.

"Didn't you get the memo to boycott Uber?" He asked, softly, his hair - too long, he needed a cut - falling down into his face and blocking his eyes while he clicked through Ryan's phone.

Ryan felt numb through the awkward goodbyes, stumbling over his feet and his words back out the still-open door and down the hall to the elevator and the promise to call when he got home safely and the drive back to his apartment and the thirty seven steps to collapse on his bed and regret the whole night and the past two years for good measure.

* * *

 

Ryan came into the office and saw the HAPPY ANNIVERSARY banner and almost made a run for it.

But worse than the romantic theme to the whole joke, worse than the silk roses and the jokes about whether they'd be doing the traditional leather gift or the modern crystal and glass one, worse than the slew of dirty jokes that followed about that, worse than posing for pictures with someone who won't fucking look at him, was the montage they played in one of the studios, plying them with plastic flutes of real champagne, cheap and over carbonated. 

He closed his eyes.

Dancing by the pool. Standing on the pier. Dinner. Drinks. Traveling together, climbing into bed together at night, coming into work together, going to dinner, drinks, the movies, back to Shane's house, the kiss in the kitchen, Shane calling him, Ryan yelling, Shane yelling back, and it wasn't a bit for once. It was real, and the next day on set again and that was fake, playing pretend, playing their roles, playacting that they hadn't kissed and fought and hung up, and they kept acting when the cameras stopped rolling because they didn't know how to act around each other anymore.

When he opened his eyes they were laughing together onscreen. Touching so casually. Next to him Shane was inches away and their shoulders didn't brush and Shane's eyes didn't crinkle and this felt inevitable too and pretending felt like lying and they felt like a dead end.

Onscreen they were in Ryan's car driving north and bickering over the radio, copyright footage they couldn't air, and looking back now it seemed obvious. And Shane had kissed back and Shane had said bad idea and Shane said, no, stay, and Shane had called worried and Ryan had fucked up. Ryan had kissed him, said let's pretend it never happened, said I'll call an Uber, answered the phone angry, ruined everything.

"Three years, baby!" Shane said, toasting with his coffee cup, voice all wrong.

Onscreen they were smiling too brittle, jokes jarring and falling flat, and no one seemed to notice that the scene was all wrong.

He forced a smile and raised his plastic champagne flute for the camera flashing.

* * *

 

"Retake," said Ryan, standing on the doorstep. 

Shane stared at him.

Ryan swallowed. "I want a retake. The last shot. The last few months. I fucking hate it, so. Retake. There's another showing of -"

"Cut," said Shane, wearily. "This scene went to post already, Ryan."

"Can - can we drop the metaphor?"

"It's your metaphor!"

"I don't think it was a mistake."

"I think these last few months proved it was."

"I think they proved it wasn't."

"You never had much of a head for proof."

"You never saw what was right in front of you," Ryan shot back, and pushed past him, into his apartment, past the kitchen entrance to the living room and he pulled up his laptop and he hit play.

Shane tossing popcorn into the air and Ryan catching it in his mouth, in a deserted terminal, and laughter. Shaky forward facing footage of Shane snoring against Ryan's shoulder on the plane. Of Ryan passed out with his head against Shane's arm in another terminal in another state and another city. Ryan getting Shane's bags and Shane grabbing Ryan's jacket and pillow. Shane holding the door for the rental car open while Ryan stifled a yawn and slipped inside. In their glasses in a hotel bed. In their sweatpants at a hotel breakfast buffet. More selfie footage of tipsy giggling in the back of a stranger's car. Shane giving Ryan his own scarf and buttoning Ryan's coat up over it with a joke about Californians. Ryan grinning cos he's just sent Shane's a terrible pun, and his eyes crinkling and his laughter as he looks up at Ryan. Eating dinner in a diner. Sharing a beer. Dancing by the pool. Ryan waking Shane up. Shane issuing sleepy threat-compliment hybrids. Shane sleeping peacefully on a plane, and that's not from any reel, any social media, just Ryan's SIM card. There's nothing comedic about it. No joke, no teasing, no public viewing. Just strange soft lighting and the smoothness of Shane's expression and a few minutes of tranquility on crowded transport.

Shane shut Ryan's laptop. Walked over to the door and opened it. Ryan picked up his laptop and the shattered pieces of his last dash hopes and started towards the door, but Shane caught him, took the laptop, crowded him into the kitchen and kissed him against the fridge, scattering magnets.

"Why - why did you open the door?"

"Resetting the scene, Ryan, pay attention -"

"Oh, I'm paying attention -"

And it was easy. One-two-three, one-two-three, joke-reply-rejoinder, dancing by the pool and falling back into this and eventually remembering to close the door and climbing into the same bed and driving to work together in the morning and arguing some more and sitting side by side at their desks and having silent conversations in a meeting and dinner and arguing some more and drinks and a movie and arguing about it and sharing a ride home and kissing in the kitchen and staying the night and waking up to Shane filming him, spiky haired from the pillow and Shane's fingers, and bleary from waking up to a phone in his face.


End file.
